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U.S. military expenditure

it's all spent killing mainly innocent brown people in the name of 'democracy', either directly (Vietnam / Iraq) or indirectly (Palestine). maybe if they had a huge defence budget but it was just to fund a highly-structured peace army which acted as the "arsenal of democracy" in wartime and supplied arms to the group of countries that it was allied with and wasn't composed of lebensraum-securing dictators.

i mean there's a country with a highly superior economy at this time with a functioning democracy which has worked for several years and yet its citizens continually elect people who don't plan to convert it into an operation for world peace, despite the great potential it has to secure this. and is it that great of a democracy, really? i mean the words 'filibuster' and 'gerrymandering' are everywhere in the U.S. press, there's a bigger over-representation of the main two than in U.K. politics, and yet the U.S. is the king of democracy. at least they have freedom of speech and freedom of press/association I guess!!

i'm not speaking from any political position here, these are just inevidenced thoughts.

america hardly has a highly superior economy. its really big yes, but thats more down to the fact that we have a much larger population than other western industrial nations on our level of development, and the fact that everything is so inefficient and thus costs more. america's economy is a mess.

a 'trade ally' is ... sort of a thing that doesnt exist. china and america trade(moreso america forks out money to china without much reciprocity), but their foreign relations are rather uneasy, and even their actual economic relations are uneasy as china artificially deflating the yuan to suck up the world export market is something the us has been calling predatory for years

also the us military pretty regularly runs war games based on china taking moves against US influence(specifically trying to invade taiwan) so military conflict with china is something the government and military view as a distinct plausibility

I know I'm new here but I'll throw in my 2 cents. I have a little experience on this.

Originally Posted by God

also the us military pretty regularly runs war games based on china taking moves against US influence(specifically trying to invade taiwan) so military conflict with china is something the government and military view as a distinct plausibility

I would agree with you there, not only China but (north) Korea as well. It's not that necessaraly we think China is going to attack us. Just covering our asses incase something does happen. Like locking the door before you go to bed, you don't anticipate anything happening, it's just incase. We definitely aren't allies, more like "weak friends" only together because at present, it benifits us both.

Back to the main topic though, the reason the military budget is so high, quite simpily is because it's such a gigantic organization. You gotta figure wages, clothing, housing, healthcare, et cetera. For 1.5 million people (1.477 according to wiki) that adds up real quick. Not to mention fighting a war a few thousand miles away. Granted it probably dosnt need to be so high. but since we're "entitled" to protection as Americans, well that's what we get. At a cost.